Today we had a guest lecture by Dr. Nat Raha, and she also did a live poetry performance. Before this lecture I did not know much about her, but after seeing the performance I felt that her way of using sound and poetry was very special.
She started by playing recordings of her own poems. The recordings were layered on top of each other, so the voices sounded like they were mixing and talking to each other. Some lines were clear and some were hidden, and it created a very emotional atmosphere. After that she read the same poems live in front of us while the recordings were still playing in the background. This made the whole performance feel more powerful, almost like past and present were happening at the same time.
I noticed how she used her voice in different ways. Sometimes it was soft, sometimes stronger, and sometimes she paused on certain words. Even though she was reading poetry, it felt a lot like sound art. The layers, the timing, and the space of the room all became part of the performance.
She also talked about her work and how poetry can express political feelings, identity, and personal experience. I learned that sound does not always need to be music. A voice, a line of text, or even silence can create meaning.
This lecture made me think about how I can use my own voice in my projects, not just as vocals in music but also as a sound element on its own. I liked how she showed that poetry can be sound art when you think about texture, rhythm, and emotion.
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